Adventures in and Around Fort Worth

Hi readers! I am working on a Fort Worth coffee shop review. Comment below, or email me (foodtravelfortworth@gmail.com) to tell me all about your favorite coffee shop in Fort Worth.  I will help get you started by listing a few local watering holes for the caffeine addict.  Avoca: friendly, loud music, hipster, love the bright atmosphere, great coffee, purists, no toaster oven for their baked goods (just a toaster, which the bagel weenie doesn't fit in), fast internet, have milk alternatives*. Brewed: very friendly, business as mission, warm and inviting atmosphere, good coffee, expensive, music at reasonable volume, fast internet in bar area, food too expensive for what you're getting, have milk alternatives.  Buon Giorno: strip center, fast internet, friendly, quiet, good coffee, not-so-good atmosphere, have milk alternatives.  The Cup:  amazing frozen hot chocolate, don't bring your messy toddler because the owner might say so...

I don't care how cool or mature you think you are, you have a little kid inside of you that loves to play. If you don't, he or she has run off and you need to find them.  Mine is hyper and needs fun things to do often, so naturally my sister and I gathered a group of willing grown kiddos to go see Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker at Bass Hall .  We left the boyfriends, husbands and actual children at home. Before the show our group met at Del Frisco's Grille for some bar snacks and wine. It is always great to catch up with friends no matter the occasion. This is a Fort Worth event I recommend for everyone, except my husband, father, son and father-in-law.  Parents who look at this like a burden you must endure year after year with your child, stop. The music is more sophisticated and beautiful than anything you will hear on your favorite top 40 station. They sell adult beverages if you need a little help with your restless leg syndrome, and the dancers with Te...

The ice starts to melt, and I'm not sure I'm ready to go back to the way things were before.  For three days we’ve lived in a city laminated in ice. The temperature never climbed above freezing until this easy Sunday afternoon. The sheets of freezing rain that fell Thursday begin to soften.  For reasons still unknown, this North Texas ice storm enchanted me. Maybe it’s that the world slowed down long enough for me to see it passing. Or the time I spent with my new little family. Maybe it's the  desolate roads, taking me to another place or time. Whatever it is, it prodded me to stop and think about why this weekend was so different from most. Please allow me  this platform to make a few guesses, and see if it means anything to you as a person probably wondering the same. The world stopped. But our overly productive selves never stop except on those rare holidays—Christmas, Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day. Black Friday started on Thanksgiving...

West Wing After days of freezing rain, the sun comes out 11.26.2013 View of the original Kimbell building designed by L. Kahn from the new Piano Pavilion lobby Piano elegantly frames Fort Worth history—The Will Rogers Memorial Coliseum and its allée elms The Kimbell's Kahn Building the night of the Piano Pavilion Grand Opening Party 11.24.2013 What was once architectural silence, the lawn is now a space where Piano weaves the sacred (art viewing) with the profane (socializing). 

View of original Kimbell building from the new pavilion. I pulled my car into the Kimbell Art Museum's sparkling monochromatic underground parking garage. The museum's Renzo Piano Pavilion opened to members this morning, and after months of research I'm afire.  Talk about whether this building will complicate or take away from the original Kimbell Art Museum designed by Kahn have swirled internationally for years—whether the green space that once represented silence will be ruined, whether the jewel box masterpiece actually needed to grow, and why one should augment something that is considered a perfect work of architecture. I grew up close to this museum and was distraught when they erected the ugly tarp and dug into the sacred lawn I once sat by myself and sketched the allée elms or read philosophy texts.  After three years of digging the tarp is gone, and much of the green space intact. I jump into the transparent, glass elevator, float onto the lawn facin...

The Kimbell Art Museum Piano Pavilion will open to the public this week after three years of construction. As a father would do upon arrival of his newborn child, architect Renzo Piano rushed to Fort Worth to nurture, protect and proudly present his latest architectural feat. Piano said if the original Kimbell building designed by Louis Kahn was an introvert with its windows facing interior courtyards, then his new pavilion is an extrovert with its windows forming walls to the lawn and life buzzing outside. Hence the name, pavilion. A pavilion is traditionally a short distance from the main building where people escape and find relaxation. Piano said his building is an open and inviting building where people can meet, hear music, participate in classes or view art, in his talk A Conversation with Renzo Piano Nov. 19 in Fort Worth's Will Roger's Memorial Coliseum. Piano has a history if mixing the sacred and profane, which he does with this building. The profane are the ar...

WOW makes its debut at Arts Goggle Fall 2013  Some of us have a love affair with books. We walk into the bookstore and wonder which book we will meet today. We narrow our options by going to the sections where we know we will find the one. We look at their covers, feel their pages, and read the synopsis inside the flap. Sometimes we meander over to staff picks to see what professional bookworms recommend. Then we whittle our decision down to one or two books and rush home to dive into another world. Words on Wheels is a school bus converted public library that moves up and down Magnolia Avenue in Fort Worth, but without a checkout system, making it possible for anyone and everyone to court the book of their dreams.  This young man found a Harry Potter book. After Borders bookstores shut their doors in 2011, and she heard Barnes & Noble plans to close two Fort Worth locations in Januar y, founder Tina Stovall decided to open WOW. She wants to...

Maybe you grew up playing in Fort Worth's Botanic Gardens . Maybe you didn't. It's a magical place where children dream of fairies and knomes, and adults escape the hum drum of the city life roaring just outside the garden's gates. This place means something different to everyone, but either way it is important to the city of Fort Worth, and for this reason people who care deeply for the gardens have come together to return the favor. A lot is about to change for the better.  As the oldest and largest botanic gardens in the state of Texas, the Fort Worth Botanic Garden  is nationally recognized as a historical site and for it's beautiful rose gardens.The garden's history started in 1912 when a small portion of land was roped off for a large city park. In 1933 it was purchased by the Fort Worth Park Commissioners. Originally 38 acres, the gardens now encompass 109 acres in the middle of the city. This year the Fort Worth Botanical Society just nominated the...

  Biking in Telluride, Colorado The More Forgiving Path Mountain biking —the most terrifying and exhilarating thing I’ve done since that crazy horseback ride through the mountains outside of San Miguel, Mexico. At that horseback ride, the guide handed us a beer and a flimsy straw hat when we arrived at 9 a.m. He pointed to the horse we were to mount in a few moments. No waiver was signed, no lessons or tips given. If you had to take a bathroom break there was a small blue bucket in their outhouse. Oh, and my horse’s name was Tornado. For three hours we galloped through steep canyons and splashed through creeks and river beds. And yes, some members of our group were in tears making their peace with God. I, on the other hand, was in heaven.  I figured out quickly that mountain biking is a lot like riding a horse in the wild. I’m not talking about group trail rides that move slower than a hoveround. I'm referring to the fox hunting style of riding—fast...

For speed was a profoundly different way of moving through the world than my normal modes of travel. Miles weren't things that blazed dully past. They were long, intimate straggles of weeds and clumps of dirt, blades of grass and flowers that bent in the wind, trees that lumbered and screeched. They were the sound of my breath and my feet hitting the trail one step at a time and the click of my ski pole. The [trail] had taught me what a mile was. I was humbled [by] each and every one... ...It had nothing to do with the gear or footwear or the backpacking fads or philosophies of any particular era or even getting from point A to point B.  It had only to do with how it felt to be in the wild. With what it was like to walk for miles for no reason other than to witness the accumulation of trees and meadows, mountains and deserts, streams and rocks, rivers and grasses, sunrises and sunsets. The experience was powerful and fundamental.    ~ Cheryl Strayed in Wild ...

I've been going to Mayfest since I was in my mom's tummy. She used to volunteer with the Junior League setting up and working the booths. We went EVERY year and the happy memories have stayed with me ever since. I can hardly wait to see what the logo will look like every year. I'm a huge fan of this year's—it has a simple vintage flair. I still wish I had all of the T-shirts I collected over the years. I especially loved one from the early 80s with butterflies on it. Beyond the shirts, how could I forget getting my face painted like a little animal or the wood crafting section.  It was my favorite! Building doll houses and tables made me feel like I do and could make anything.  Smashing confetti eggs on cute boys' heads was the BEST way to flirt in middle school. Face painting, Dippin Dots and turkey legs never got old. I loved getting dressed up for the dance recitals we performed in. As an adult, we drink a beer and mingle with old friends. This is alway...